Awe

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 107 of 217 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  31 Then He came down [from the hills of Nazareth] to Capernaum, a city of Galilee [on the shore of the sea], and He was teaching them on the Sabbath; [Mark 1:21–28 ] 32 and they were surprised [almost overwhelmed] at His teaching, because His message was [given] with authority and power and great ability. 33 There was a man in the synagogue who was possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud and terrible voice, 34 “Let us alone! b What business do we have [in common] with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent (muzzled, gagged) and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown the man down among them, he came out of him without injuring him in any way. 36 They were all astonished and in awe, and began saying to one another, “What is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out!” 37 And the news about Him spread into every place in the surrounding district (Galilee). Many Are Healed 38 Then Jesus got up and left the synagogue and went to Simon’s (Peter’s) house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her. [Matt 8:14–17 ; Mark 1:29–34 ] 39 Standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her; and immediately she got up and began serving them [as her guests]. 40 While the sun was setting [marking the end of the Sabbath day], all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Jesus; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them [exhibiting His authority as Messiah]. [Matt 8:16 , 17 ; Mark 1:32–34 ] 41 Demons also were coming out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But He rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that He was the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed). 42 When daybreak came, Jesus left [Simon Peter’s house] and went to a secluded place; and the crowds were searching for Him, and [they] came to Him and tried to keep Him from leaving them. 43 But He said, “I must preach [the good news of] the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because I was sent for this purpose.” 44 So He continued preaching in the synagogues of Judea [the country of the Jews, including Galilee]. Luke 5 The First Disciples 1 N OW IT happened that while Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret (Sea of Galilee), with the people crowding all around Him and listening to the word of God; 2 that He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  My hands, stretched out the heavens, And I commanded all their host. 13 “I have stirred up Cyrus and put him into action in righteousness [to accomplish My purpose] And I will make all his ways smooth; He will build My city and let My exiles go, Without any payment or reward,” says the LORD of hosts. 14 For this is what the LORD says, “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush (ancient Ethiopia) And the Sabeans, men of stature, Will come over to you and they will be yours; They will walk behind you, in chains [of subjection to you] they will come over, And they will bow down before you; They will make supplication to you, [humbly and earnestly] saying, a ‘Most certainly God is with you, and there is no other, No other God [besides Him].’ ” [1 Cor 14:25 ] 15 Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, Savior! 16 They will be put to shame and also humiliated, all of them; They who make idols will go away together in humiliation. 17 Israel has been saved by the LORD With an everlasting salvation; You will not be put to shame or humiliated for all eternity. [Heb 5:9 ] 18 For the LORD , who created the heavens b (He is God, who formed the earth and made it; He established it and did not create it to be a wasteland, but formed it to be inhabited) says this, “I am the LORD , and there is no one else. 19 “I have not spoken in secret, In a corner of a land of darkness; I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in vain [with no benefit for yourselves].’ I, the LORD , speak righteousness [the truth—trustworthy, a straightforward correlation between deeds and words], Declaring things that are upright. [John 18:20 ] 20 “Assemble yourselves and come; Come together, you survivors of the nations! They are ignorant, Who carry around their wooden idols [in religious processions or into battle] And keep on praying to a god that cannot save them. 21 “Declare and present your defense of idols; Indeed, let them consult together. Who announced this [rise of Cyrus and his conquests] long before it happened? Who declared it long ago? Was it not I, the LORD ? And there is no other God besides Me, A [consistently and uncompromisingly] just and righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me. 22 “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. 23 “I have sworn [an oath] by Myself, The word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear [allegiance].

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  I offered him all I could but I knew that the one thing I could not say was, “When Greek women say ‘I love you,’ it doesn’t mean the same to them as in the US or perhaps in the UK. In fact, one afternoon fifty Greek women whispered those same words to me.” The day after the Hestia signing, the Panteion University awarded me my only honorary doctorate. I was awed to stand before a large audience in a grand hall whose walls were covered with paintings of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Epicurus, and Aeschylus. The following evening, Marilyn spoke at the University of Athens on feminist issues. Heady stuff for the Yalom family! My next visit to Greece came four years later, in 2009. Marilyn had been invited by the University of Ioannina to speak about her book A History of the Breast . Knowing we were coming to Greece, the Onassis Foundation invited me to give an address about my new book, The Schopenhauer Cure , in the Megaron, the largest concert hall in Athens. When we arrived in Athens, we were given a private tour of the new Acropolis Museum, due to open in a few weeks. Upon entering, we were astounded at the glass floors that allowed us to see, under our feet, layer after layer of ruins of civilizations going back thousands of years. Elsewhere in the museum were the Elgin Marbles, known by the name of the Englishman who carried about half of them off from the Acropolis to the British Museum. The missing (some would say stolen) sections were presented in plaster casts of a different color from the originals. Returning works of art to their country of origin is a bedeviling problem for all museums today. When in Greece, however, we empathized with the Greeks. L ECTURE AT M EGARON IN A THENS , 2009. A CROPOLIS M USEUM , A THENS , 2009. From Athens we flew to Ioannina, where Marilyn had been invited by Professor Marina Vrelli-Zachou to speak at the university, an impressive institution of 20,000 students. As always, when I heard Marilyn address an audience, I sat back happily and restrained my impulse to shout out, “Hey, hey, that’s my wife.” The following day our hosts took us on a tour of the countryside and to Dodona, an ancient site mentioned in Homer. We sat for a long time in the Greek amphitheater on seats constructed 2,000 years ago, and then strolled over to the grove of trees where oracles had once interpreted the language of blackbirds. Something about the site—its massiveness, its dignity and history—was deeply moving, and despite my skepticism, I had a taste, a faint taste, of the sacred. We strolled through the town of Ioannina, which bordered a beautiful lake, and ended up at a synagogue dating to Roman times that still functions as a place of worship for the city’s small Jewish community.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  [Is 4:2 ; Jer 23:5 ; 33:15 ; Zech 6:12 ] 9 ‘For behold, the e stone which I have set before Joshua; on that one stone are seven eyes (symbolizing infinite intelligence, omniscience). Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘and I will remove the wickedness and guilt of this land in a single day. [2 Chr 16:9 ; Jer 50:20 ; Zech 4:10 ] 10 ‘In that day,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and his fig tree [enjoying peace and prosperity in the kingdom].’ ” [Mic 4:1–4 ] Zechariah 4 The Golden Lampstand and Olive Trees 1 A nd the angel who was speaking with me came back and awakened me, like a man who is awakened out of his sleep. 2 He said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl [for oil] on the top of it and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it. [Matt 5:14 , 16 ; Luke 12:35 ; Phil 2:15 ; Rev 1:20 ] 3 “And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on its left side [supplying it continuously with oil].” [Rev 11:4–13 ] 4 So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these, my lord?” 5 Then the angel who was speaking with me answered me, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord.” 6 Then he said to me, “This [continuous supply of oil] is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel [prince of Judah], saying, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit [of whom the oil is a symbol],’ says the LORD of hosts. 7 ‘What are you, O great mountain [of obstacles]? Before Zerubbabel [who will rebuild the temple] you will become a plain (insignificant)! And he will bring out the capstone [of the new temple] with loud shouts of “Grace, grace to it!” ’ ” [Ezra 4:1–5 , 24 ; Is 40:4 ] 8 Also the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundations of this house, and his hands will finish it. Then you will know (recognize, understand fully) that the LORD of hosts has sent me [as His messenger] to you. 10 “Who [with reason] despises the day of small things (beginnings)? For these b seven [eyes] shall rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  412–85 CE) explained that some mystai were “stricken with panic” during the darker part of the rite and remained trapped in their fear; they were not sufficiently adept in this ritual of make-believe. But others achieved a sympatheia, an affinity that made them one with the ritual, so that they lost themselves in it “in a way that is unintelligible to us and divine.” Their ekstasis was a kenosis, a self-forgetfulness that enabled them to “assimilate themselves to the holy symbols, leave their own identity, become at home with the gods, and experience divine possession.” 17 Some Greeks, however, were beginning to be critical of the old mythology. How could anybody imagine that the gods “are born, and have clothes and speech and shape like our own,” asked the Ionian poet Xenophanes (560–480), or that they were guilty of theft, adultery, and deception? 18 To be truly divine, a god should transcend such human qualities and be beyond time and change. 19 The naturalist Anaxagoras of Smyrna (508–435) insisted that the moon and stars were just massive rocks; it was not the gods but Mind (nous), composed of sacred matter, that controlled the universe. Protagoras of Abdera caused a sensation when he arrived in Athens in 430 and delivered a lecture in the home of the playwright Euripides (480–406). No god could impose his will on human beings, and as for the Olympians, who could tell whether they existed or not? “There are many obstacles to such knowledge, including the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of human life.” 20 There was simply not the evidence to pronounce definitively on the existence of the divine, one way or the other. Athens was still a very religious city and Protagoras and Anaxagoras were both expelled from the polis. But people were looking for a deeper form of theism. For the tragedian Aeschylus (525–456) the ineluctable pain of human life was the path to wisdom. Zeus— “whoever Zeus may be”—had “taught men to think” and reflect on the sorrow of human experience. It was therefore ordained that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again, and we resist, but ripeness comes as well. From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench there comes a violent love. 21 Euripides wanted a more transcendent god: “O you who give the earth support and me by it supported,” prays Queen Hecuba in his Trojan Women, “whoever you are, power beyond our knowledge, Zeus, be you stern law of nature or intelligence in man, to you I make my prayers; for you direct in the way of justice all mortal affairs, moving with noiseless tread.” 22 Euripides seems to have concluded that “the nous of each one of us is a god.” 23 The philosophers of Athens were about to arrive at the same conclusion.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us—and if we do not agree, seems to put its hands in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject.—How beautiful are the retired flowers! how they would lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out “admire me I am a violet! dote on me I am a primrose!”77 Where the philosophes had been wary of the imagination, Keats saw it as a sacred faculty that brought new truth into the world: “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their Sublime creative of essential Beauty.”78 The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who was greatly influenced by the Romantic movement, was also in retreat from Newtonian religion. He too sought a presence in “the mind of man.” In On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799), he argued that the religious quest should not begin with an analysis of the cosmos but in the depths of the psyche.79 A religion of this kind would not be an alienating force but involved with what was “highest and dearest” to us.80 God was to be found in the “depths of human nature,” in “the ground of its actions and thought.”81 The essence of religion lay in the feeling of “absolute dependence” that was fundamental to human experience.82 This did not mean abject servility toward a distant, externalized God. Crucial aspects of our lives—our parentage, genetic inheritance, and the time and manner of our death—were entirely beyond our control. We experienced life, therefore, as “given,” something that we received. This “dependence” was not merely something that had been implanted by God; it was God, the source and “whence” of our being.83 Yet this theology was somewhat reductive: for Schleiermacher, the human being had become the center, origin, and goal of the religious quest. Instead of being the ultimate explanation of the universe, God was a necessary consequence of human nature, a device that enabled us to understand ourselves.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Religion was not something tacked on to the human condition, an optional extra imposed on people by unscrupulous priests. The desire to cultivate a sense of the transcendent may be the defining human characteristic. In about 9000 BCE, when human beings developed agriculture and were no longer dependent on animal meat, the old hunting rites lost some of their appeal and people ceased to visit the caves. But they did not discard religion altogether. Instead they developed a new set of myths and rituals based on the fecundity of the soil that filled the men and women of the Neolithic age with religious awe.26 Tilling the fields became a ritual that replaced the hunt, and the nurturing Earth took the place of the Animal Master. Before the modern period, most men and women were naturally inclined to religion and they were prepared to work at it. Today many of us are no longer willing to make this effort, so the old myths seem arbitrary, remote, and incredible. Like art, the truths of religion require the disciplined cultivation of a different mode of consciousness. The cave experience always began with the disorientation of utter darkness, which annihilated normal habits of mind. Human beings are so constituted that periodically they seek out ekstasis, a “stepping outside” the norm. Today people who no longer find it in a religious setting resort to other outlets: music, dance, art, sex, drugs, or sport. We make a point of seeking out these experiences that touch us deeply within and lift us momentarily beyond ourselves. At such times, we feel that we inhabit our humanity more fully than usual and experience an enhancement of being. Lascaux may seem impossibly distant from modern religious practice, but we cannot understand either the nature of the religious quest or our current religious predicament unless we appreciate the spirituality that emerged quite early in the history of Homo religiosus and continued to animate the major confessional traditions until the early modern period, when an entirely different kind of religiosity emerged in the West during the seventeenth century. To do that we must examine a number of core principles that will be of fundamental importance to our story.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  4 “I persecuted and pursued the followers of this b Way to the death, binding them with chains and putting [followers of Jesus] both men and women into prisons, 5 as the high priest and all the Council of the elders (Sanhedrin, Jewish High Court) can testify; because from them I received letters to the brothers, and I was on my way to Damascus in order to bring those [believers] who were there to Jerusalem in chains to be punished. 6 “But as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a great blaze of light suddenly flashed from heaven and shone around me. 7 “And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ 8 “And I replied, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’ 9 “Now those who were with me c saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. 10 “And I asked, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord answered me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that is appointed and destined for you to do.’ 11 “But since I could not see because of the [glorious intensity and dazzling] brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. 12 “And one Ananias, a devout man according to d the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, 13 came to [see] me, and standing near, he said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I [recovered my sight and] looked up at him. 14 “And he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will, [and to progressively understand His plan with clarity and power] and to see the Righteous One [Jesus Christ, the Messiah] and to hear a message from His [own] mouth. 15 ‘For you will be His witness to all men testifying of what you have seen and heard. 16 ‘Now, why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins by calling on His name [for salvation].’ 17 “Then it happened when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple [enclosure], that I fell into a trance (vision); 18 and I saw Him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about Me.’ 19 “And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know [without any doubt] that in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in You [and Your message of salvation].

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  2 They brought to Him a man who was paralyzed, lying on a stretcher. Seeing their [active] faith [springing from confidence in Him], Jesus said to the paralytic, “Do not be afraid, son; your sins are forgiven [the penalty is paid, the guilt removed, and you are declared to be in right standing with God].” [Mark 2:3–12 ; Luke 5:18–26 ] 3 And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man blasphemes [by claiming the rights and prerogatives of God]!” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 “For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven and the penalty paid,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? [Both are possible for God; both are impossible for man.] 6 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority and the power on earth to forgive sins” —then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your stretcher and go home.” 7 And he got up and went home [healed and forgiven]. 8 When the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God and praised Him, who had given such authority and power to men. Matthew Called 9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew (Levi) sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me [as My disciple, accepting Me as your Master and Teacher and walking the same path of life that I walk].” And Matthew got up and followed Him. [Mark 2:14–22 ; Luke 5:27–39 ] 10 Then as Jesus was reclining at the table in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and a sinners [including non-observant Jews] came and ate with Him and His disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but [only] those who are sick. 13 “Go and learn what this [Scripture] means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION [for those in distress], AND NOT [animal] SACRIFICE ,’ for I did not come to call [to repentance] the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to change], but sinners [those who recognize their sin and actively seek forgiveness].” [Hos 6:6 ; Mark 2:17 ; Luke 5:32 ] The Question about Fasting 14 Then the disciples of John [the Baptist] came to Jesus, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees often fast [as a religious exercise], but Your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus replied to them, “Can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 “But no one puts a piece of unshrunk (new) cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  During World War II, almost all the Jews in Ioannina were killed, and very few survivors returned. The remaining group is so small that the synagogue now permits women to count among the minyan , the ten Jewish males required by Jewish law to hold a religious service. Walking through the marketplace, watching the old men playing backgammon and sipping ouzo, we inhaled the wonderful smells associated with this country, but one irresistible aroma—baklava—enticed me, and I followed my nose to the bakery, where I found two dozen different varieties. I still fantasize about a writing retreat in Ioannina, preferably in the neighborhood of the bakery. In the Ioannina University bookstore, as we both signed books, Marilyn asked the owner about my popularity with Greek readers. “Yalom is the best-known American writer here,” he said. Marilyn asked, “What about Philip Roth?” “We like him too,” he answered, “but we think of Yalom as Greek.” Journalists have asked me over the years about my popularity in Greece, and I can never really answer. I know that, despite not speaking a word of Greek, I nonetheless feel at home there, and even in the United States I feel warmly disposed toward people of Greek descent. I am enthralled by Greek drama and philosophy, and by Homer, but this doesn’t explain it. It may be more of a Middle Eastern phenomenon, since my readership is also disproportionately high in Turkey, Israel, and Iran. Surprisingly, I regularly get email from Iranian students, therapists, and patients. I do not know how many copies of my books have been sold in Farsi: Iran is the only country that publishes my work without permission and without offering royalties. My professional contacts in Iran tell me they are familiar with books by Freud, Carl Jung, Mortimer Adler, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow and would like more contact with Western psychotherapists. Unfortunately, as I am no longer traveling abroad, I have had to refuse their invitations to speak in Iran. With so much devastating news in the world today, all of us grow fatigued or numb, but whenever a newscaster mentions Greece, Marilyn and I always pay attention. I will always feel a sense of wonder toward the Greeks and grateful to be considered an honorary Greek.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  50 Lecture 11: The Gospel of Peter He appears to bemoan the departure of divine nature before he dies (v. 19). Still other differences reÀ ect legendary expansions of the traditions of Jesus’ death and resurrection. For example, one of the robbers being cruci¿ ed is punished (for verbally attacking those executing Jesus) by not having his legs broken. Most striking of all is the detailed narration of Jesus’ actual resurrection (that is, his emergence from the tomb, not described in any of the canonical accounts). Two angels descend bodily from heaven and enter the tomb (vv. 35–37). There then emerge three ¿ gures from the tomb, tall as skyscrapers (vv. 39–40). Behind them comes the cross, which is asked from heaven if it has preached to those “who had fallen asleep” (that is, those in Hades) and replies, “Yes” (vv. 39, 41–42). The account ends with the women going to the tomb and learning of the resurrection (vv. 50–57) and the ¿ rsthand account of a ¿ shing expedition of the disciples, which breaks off abruptly in mid-sentence (v. 60). The discovery of this remarkable account led to numerous critical questions: When was it originally written? Did it use the canonical gospels as sources for its narratives? Or is it independent of the other known accounts? These questions continue to be debated. Probably, the majority of scholars think that it was written after the canonical accounts (possibly in the early part of the second century), as suggested by its virulent anti-Judaism and legendary character. Because there are very few verbal similarities between it and the others, it may represent an independent account, based on oral traditions that continued to circulate about Jesus for a long time after the New Testament gospels were produced. Ŷ John Dominic Crossan, Four Other Gospels. Bart Ehrman, After the New Testament, reading 38. Most striking of all is the detailed narration of Jesus’ actual resurrection. Essential Reading 51 Paul Mirecki, “Peter, Gospel of,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. V, pp. 278–281. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah. John Dominic Crossan, The Cross That Spoke. Christian Maurer and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, “The Gospel of Peter,” in Edgar Hennecke and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, eds., New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels and Related Writings. 1. What about the Gospel of Peter might be taken as “heretical” by a proto- orthodox Christian of the early centuries? Are there ways to interpret the passages in question in a non-heretical way? 2. What kind of argument could be mounted that the Gospel of Peter preserves traditions earlier than those of the New Testament gospels, which were possibly used by these gospels as sources? Supplementary Reading Questions to Consider

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  21 with bitumen. Inside, they found nothing “valuable,” just thirteen leather- bound volumes. The leader of the group, named, remarkably enough, Mohammed Ali, took these back home with him to his village. That night, his mother used several pages to kindle the ¿ re in her stove. Mohammed Ali came to think that the books might be worth something and wanted to put them somewhere for safekeeping, all the more necessary because of suspicions aroused among authorities for his role in a recent murder. He gave one of the books to a local priest for safekeeping, who showed it to his brother-in-law, a traveling teacher who recognized that it might be of some value. Eventually, word got out to antiquities dealers and the books were tracked down and sold to the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. Scholars who learned of the discovery were À oored by its signi¿ cance. It was, in fact, a real treasure trove, a collection of original writings by gnostic Christians, including gospels about Jesus that had never before been seen by any Western scholar. These books were known to have existed in antiquity but had been lost for nearly 1,500 years. Contained within these thirteen leather-bound books were ¿ fty-two tractates (that is, anthologies), written on papyrus. The books themselves were produced some time in the late fourth century (demonstrated by the scrap paper used to strengthen the bindings, with dated receipts, the last of which is from 348 A.D.), but the tractates within them are much older, many of them dating back to the second century or earlier. The books are all written in the Coptic language (= Egyptian), translations of Greek originals. They comprise different kinds of books: gospels allegedly written by Jesus’ own disciples (e.g., Thomas and Philip); apocalypses; mystical reÀ ections about how the divine realm, the world, and humans came into existence; expositions of important religious doctrines, such as the resurrection; and polemical attacks on religious enemies (including proto- orthodox Christians!). Now widely known as the Nag Hammadi library, the A cache of original gnostic documents in 1945, near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi, was one of the most important archaeological ¿ nds of the twentieth century.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  113 diatesseron: Literally means “through the four.” Used as a technical term to refer to a harmonization of the four New Testament gospels into one long narrative, created by a second-century author named Tatian. Didymus Judas Thomas: The alleged author of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, whose exploits are narrated in the Acts of Thomas; in these traditions, he is said to be the (twin) brother of Jesus. docetism: The view that Jesus was not a human being but only “appeared” to be, from a Greek word that means “to seem” or “to appear.” Ebionites: A group of second-century adoptionists who maintained Jewish practices and Jewish forms of worship. festal letter: Annual letter written to establish the date of the Easter feast. gematria: Ancient Jewish practice of interpreting words by determining the numerical values of their letters. Gnosticism: A group of ancient religions, which were closely related to Christianity, that maintained that sparks of a divine being had become entrapped in the present evil world and could escape only by acquiring the appropriate secret gnosis (Greek for “knowledge”) of who they were and of how they could escape. This gnosis was generally thought to have been brought by an emissary descended from the divine realm. Gospel of Peter: A gospel mentioned by Eusebius as containing a docetic Christology, a fragment of which was discovered in a monk’s tomb in 1886. The fragment contains an alternative account of Jesus’ trial, cruci¿ xion, and resurrection, notable for its anti-Jewish emphases and its legendary qualities (including a tale of Jesus actually emerging from his tomb on Easter morning). Gospel of the Ebionites: A gospel used by the Ebionites that appears to have been a conÀ ation of stories found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and originally composed in Greek.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  with bitumen. Inside, they found nothing “valuable,” just thirteen leather- bound volumes. The leader of the group, named, remarkably enough, Mohammed Ali, took these back home with him to his village. That night, his mother used several pages to kindle the (cid:191) re in her stove. Mohammed Ali came to think that the books might be worth something and wanted to put them somewhere for safekeeping, all the more necessary because of suspicions aroused among authorities for his role in a recent murder. He gave one of the books to a local priest for safekeeping, who showed it to his brother-in-law, a traveling teacher who recognized that it might be of some value. Eventually, word got out to antiquities dealers and the books were tracked down and sold to the A cache of original gnostic Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. documents in 1945, near the Egyptian village of Scholars who learned of the discovery were (cid:192) oored by its signi(cid:191) cance. It was, in Nag Hammadi, was one fact, a real treasure trove, a collection of of the most important original writings by gnostic Christians, archaeological (cid:191) nds of the including gospels about Jesus that had twentieth century. never before been seen by any Western scholar. These books were known to have existed in antiquity but had been lost for nearly 1,500 years. Contained within these thirteen leather-bound books were (cid:191) fty-two tractates (that is, anthologies), written on papyrus. The books themselves were produced some time in the late fourth century (demonstrated by the scrap paper used to strengthen the bindings, with dated receipts, the last of which is from 348 A.D.), but the tractates within them are much older, many of them dating back to the second century or earlier. The books are all written in the Coptic language (= Egyptian), translations of Greek originals. They comprise different kinds of books: gospels allegedly written by Jesus’ own disciples (e.g., Thomas and Philip); apocalypses; mystical re(cid:192) ections about how the divine realm, the world, and humans came into existence; expositions of important religious doctrines, such as the resurrection; and polemical attacks on religious enemies (including proto- orthodox Christians!). Now widely known as the Nag Hammadi library, the 21

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  21 with bitumen. Inside, they found nothing “valuable,” just thirteen leather- bound volumes. The leader of the group, named, remarkably enough, Mohammed Ali, took these back home with him to his village. That night, his mother used several pages to kindle the ¿ re in her stove. Mohammed Ali came to think that the books might be worth something and wanted to put them somewhere for safekeeping, all the more necessary because of suspicions aroused among authorities for his role in a recent murder. He gave one of the books to a local priest for safekeeping, who showed it to his brother-in-law, a traveling teacher who recognized that it might be of some value. Eventually, word got out to antiquities dealers and the books were tracked down and sold to the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. Scholars who learned of the discovery were À oored by its signi¿ cance. It was, in fact, a real treasure trove, a collection of original writings by gnostic Christians, including gospels about Jesus that had never before been seen by any Western scholar. These books were known to have existed in antiquity but had been lost for nearly 1,500 years. Contained within these thirteen leather-bound books were ¿ fty-two tractates (that is, anthologies), written on papyrus. The books themselves were produced some time in the late fourth century (demonstrated by the scrap paper used to strengthen the bindings, with dated receipts, the last of which is from 348 A.D.), but the tractates within them are much older, many of them dating back to the second century or earlier. The books are all written in the Coptic language (= Egyptian), translations of Greek originals. They comprise different kinds of books: gospels allegedly written by Jesus’ own disciples (e.g., Thomas and Philip); apocalypses; mystical re À ections about how the divine realm, the world, and humans came into existence; expositions of important religious doctrines, such as the resurrection; and polemical attacks on religious enemies (including proto- orthodox Christians!). Now widely known as the Nag Hammadi library, the A cache of original gnostic documents in 1945, near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi, was one of the most important archaeological ¿ nds of the twentieth century.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  And I will have compassion on them and spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” 18 Then you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve Him. Malachi 4 Final Admonition 1 “F OR BEHOLD, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant (proud, self-righteous, haughty), and every evildoer shall be stubble; and the day that is coming shall set them on fire,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. [Is 5:21–25 ; Matt 3:12 ] 2 “But for you who fear My name [with awe-filled reverence] the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go forward and leap [joyfully] like calves [released] from the stall. 3 “You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this,” says the LORD of hosts. 4 “Remember [with thoughtful concern] the Law of Moses My servant, the statutes and the ordinances which I commanded him on [Mount] Horeb [to give] to all Israel. 5 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD . [Matt 11:14 ; 17:10–13 ] 6 “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers [a reconciliation produced by repentance], so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse [of complete destruction].” [Luke 1:17 ] Malachi 1 a 1:1 I.e. an urgent message the prophet is under compulsion to give. b 1:2 The first in a series of sarcastic questions spread throughout this book beginning with “But you say.” c 1:8 Only animals without defects or discernable flaws were to be offered as sacrifices. d 1:11 I.e. around the world. Malachi 2 a 2:16 I.e. unwarranted divorce. Conditions for divorce are outlined. See Deut 24:1–4 ; Ezra 10:10–19 ; Matt 5:31 , 32 ; 19:3–12 ; 1 Cor 7:10–16 . Malachi 3 a 3:1 This is fulfilled in John the Baptist (Matt 11:10 ; Mark 1:2 ; Luke 1:76 ). b 3:1 The Messiah as God’s representative will confirm and establish the covenant (see Is 42:6 ). c 3:10 In ancient times special storehouses were established in the temple to receive the tithes of the harvest. If the people were not faithful, the priests could not continue to serve and perform their duties. d 3:10 I.e. support for the priests and their families. e 3:11 In return for their faithfulness God promised protection for the harvest.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  52 kraM fo lepsoG terceS ehT :21 erutceL The Secret Gospel of Mark Lecture 12 One of the most controversial “discoveries” of modern times occurred in 1958 at the Mar Saba library near Jerusalem, when Morton Smith came upon the fragment of a letter, which indicates there existed a second edition of Mark’s gospel. T o this point in our course, we have seen a number of gospels that were known from ancient sources or discovered only in recent times. In this lecture, we will consider one of the most intriguing and controversial discoveries of modern times, a fragmentary account of a secret gospel allegedly written by Mark. Mark is the oldest and shortest gospel. It was not used extensively in the early church. Most of Mark’s stories are also found in Matthew and Luke, leading early Christians to believe that, perhaps, it was a condensed version of Matthew. According to the second- century heresiologist Irenaeus, the Gospel of Mark was used by Gnostics who separated the Jesus from the Christ. Mark begins with Jesus at his baptism, where the spirit of God comes into him. At the end of his life, Jesus on the cross cries out to God, “Why have you left me behind?” The proto-orthodox Christians accepted Mark as a bona(cid:191) de canonical gospel. Was there a second version of Mark? A good deal of intrigue surrounds the circumstances of the discovery of the Secret Gospel of Mark. It was discovered by Morton Smith, one of the most erudite scholars of Christian antiquity of the twentieth century. In 1941, as a Ph.D. student at Harvard, Smith spent time in Israel and visited the monastery of Mar Saba, southeast of Jerusalem. Years later, as a tenured professor at Columbia, Smith decided to spend a sabbatical there, to bring order to its library. While cataloguing the Greek and Latin manuscripts and printed books of the library, he made a remarkable discovery. In the (cid:191) nal blank pages of a seventeenth-century edition of the writings of Ignatius (an important second-century church father), he came across a handwritten copy

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  The Rise of Early Christian Orthodoxy Lecture 19 It’s striking that, despite the fact that there’s such a range of Christian beliefs that there was, in the end, only one that emerged as victorious. W e have covered a wide range of early Christian beliefs and practices in our lectures to this point. We have seen remarkable diversity among the Christian groups that we know of from the second and third centuries. Ebionites thought that Christ was a human being, a righteous man adopted by God at his baptism to be the Son of God (adoptionistic). Marcionites thought that Jesus was completely God and only seemed to be human (docetic). Gnostics thought that Jesus was a man, but Christ was a God (separationist). The proto-orthodox view agreed with the Ebionites that Jesus was a man but disagreed with them when they said that Jesus was not God. They disagreed with Gnostics, believing instead that Jesus was both God and man. Each of these groups had authoritative books that claimed to represent the views of Jesus and his apostles. Ebionites used the Gospel of Matthew. Those who separated the Jesus from the Christ used the Gospel of Mark. Marcionites used the Gospel of Luke. Followers of Valentinus used the Gospel of John. But only one of these early Christian groups emerged as victorious in the struggle to win converts and to establish the “true” nature of Christianity. This victorious group shaped for all time what Christians would believe and which Scriptures they would accept. How, though, did this one group establish itself as dominant and virtually eliminate all traces of both its opponents and the various Scriptures they revered? The traditional answer to this question derives from Eusebius, the fourth- century “father of church history.” Eusebius is one of the most important authors of Christian antiquity. He (cid:191) gured prominently in the theological disputes of his own day and was well connected politically. Most signi(cid:191) cantly, he wrote the (cid:191) rst history of Christianity, discussing the course of the Christian religion from the days of Jesus down to his own time. 81

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  I’m interested in astronomy and have made my own telescope and whenever I look at the night sky I’m blown away by how tiny and insignificant we are in the great order of things. It seems obvious to me that the ancients tried to deal with feelings of insignificance by inventing some god who considered us humans so important that he should turn his attention to surveying our every act. And it also seems obvious that we try to soften the fact of death by the invention of heaven and other fantasies and fairy tales that have one common theme: “We do not die”—we continue to exist by passing on to another realm. D R. Y ALOM: You really have those thoughts at your age? I RVIN: I’ve had them as far back as I can remember. I keep them to myself. But to be honest with you, I think of religions and the ideas of the afterlife as the world’s longest-running con game. It serves a purpose—it provides religious leaders a comfortable life and it dampens mankind’s fears of death. But it comes at such a price—it infantilizes us, it blocks our vision of the natural order. D R. Y ALOM: Con game? So strident! Why so intent on offending several billion people? I RVIN: Hey, hey, you asked me to free-associate. Remember? Usually I keep this, all of this, to myself. D R. Y ALOM: Quite right. I did ask you to do that. You complied. And then I knock you for it. My apologies. And let me ask something else. You speak about fear of death and the afterlife. I’m wondering about your own personal experiences with death. I RVIN: My first memory is the death of my cat. I was about ten. We always had a couple of cats in the store to catch mice and rats and I played with the cats a lot. One day, one of them, my favorite—I forget her name—was hit by a car, and I found her by the curb, still breathing. I ran into the store, took some liver out of the meat case (my father was a butcher also), and cut off a sliver and placed it right by the cat’s mouth. Liver was her favorite food. But she wouldn’t eat, and she soon closed her eyes for good. You know, I feel bad forgetting her name and calling her “cat”—we spent tons of warm wonderful hours together, she sitting on my lap, purring loudly, as I petted her while reading a book. As for human death, there was a boy in my third grade schoolroom. I can’t remember his name, but I think we called him “L.E.” He had white hair—perhaps he was an albino—and his mother packed unusual sandwiches in his lunch box—for example, sandwiches of cheese and pickle—I had never heard of pickles in sandwiches before. It’s so strange how certain odd things get fixed in your memory.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  1 Scope: Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication C hristians of the second and third centuries held a remarkably wide range of beliefs. Although some of these beliefs may sound ludicrous today, at the time, they seemed not only sensible but right. Some Christians maintained that there were two Gods, or twelve, or thirty, or more. Some Christians claimed that Jesus was not really a human being, or that he was not really divine, or that he was two different beings, one human and one divine. Some Christians believed that this world was not created by the true God but by a malicious deity as a place for punishment for human souls, which had become entrapped here in human bodies. Some Christians believed that Jesus’ death and resurrection had no bearing on salvation, and some Christians believed that Jesus had never actually died. Lost Christianities is a course that considers the varieties of belief and practice in the early days of Christianity, before the church had decided what was theologically acceptable and determined which books should be included in its canon of Scripture. Part of the struggle over belief and practice in the early church was over what could be legitimately accepted as “Christian” and what should be condemned as “heresy.” This course considers the struggle for orthodoxy (that is, right belief) and the attempt to label, spurn, and overthrow heresy (that is, false belief). In particular, it tries to understand Christians who were later deemed heretical on their own terms and to explore the writings that were available and could be appealed to in support of their views. Christians today, of course, typically think of the New Testament as the basis for a correct understanding of the faith. But what was Christianity like before there was a New Testament? It is striking that all the ancient Christian groups, with their distinctive views about God, Christ, salvation, and the world, had books that—like those that eventually came into the New Testament—claimed to be written by Jesus’ own apostles. Some of these